The Surfer

For the first time in memory, there is no coverage in Jamaica of that country's first class or limited overs matches. In Trinidad, former West Indies paceman Colin Croft commented that he had to search the airwaves to find the cricket, eventually finding coverage only on one weak station with poor reception. The situation doesn't seem to be much different in Barbados, where commentator Andrew Mason noted that the first round match between Barbados and Trinidad & Tobago came very close to not being broadcast because of a lack of sponsorship.

While Warne this month told British TV interviewer Michael Parkinson he did not know John was a bookmaker until months after he accepted $US5000 from him in 1994, eight years ago the Australian inquiry that heard Warne's version of events found otherwise.

Since Hayden was dropped following the 2005 tour of England, Australia have been disappointed in their quest for a regular partner for Gilchrist. Simon Katich had his time, but though he scored runs he did so too slowly for the selectors' liking. Should Hayden suffer many more failures in the series selectors will be eager to see Shane Watson return as soon as possible.

Asked why he did not tell Ponting - who was best man at Martyn's wedding - of his decision in person, Martyn said: "To look him in the eye, I would have broken down. I would have been in tears." And Martyn remains concerned that his relationship with Ponting has been damaged by the affair. “That is always something I've got to live with," Martyn said. "[Ricky] is disappointed, and rightly so."

Players have long known that their every move – every suspicious thrust of hand in pocket, every touch of nail on ball – is open to scrutiny. The more recent advent of stump microphones, intended to bring the sound and fury of the game to the viewer, means that a player's words, and therefore his thought processes and character, are open to scrutiny, too.

When Schofield said he brought passion alone to the party, he was not quite correct. Parallels and analogies are not always useful but this one might well be. Working out of a small office at the Oval, where he met men of Surrey like May and Stewart, Schofield built up the European Tour in the same way that English cricket has to grow if it is to match Australia's

The umpire wore dark glasses and last night's clothes: black shoes, black trousers and a black shirt, loose at the wrists. Hands in his pockets, he walked alone around the field. Past the whitewashed mango tree situated a few metres inside the boundary rope; past the baobab tree so thick that the wall of the Mombasa Sports Ground was built around it.

Virender Sehwag needs a ‘brain trainer’ more than ever. A few things may be wrong with his game, but then there were always a few things wrong about his basics. It’s his mind that has strayed from the game now, making batting seem like a trip to a house of horrors. He never knows what will turn up at which turn, although such gargoyles may be more in the mind.

The move smacks of weak management. The selectors must realise by now that Flintoff is a far better cricketer when the shackles of captaincy are removed and he is allowed just to play. Yet it appears as though they obsessed with not upsetting the team's most influential player in case it has a negative effect on him.

When it came to the crunch yesterday, the selectors were not strong enough to rule out Flintoff as Vaughan’s stand-in and the player — more understandably — could not bring himself to reject what may have been his one and only opportunity to show that the 5-0 whitewash was no reflection of his captaincy.

Keeping up appearances is clearly more important to England than achieving results. That can be the only logical conclusion after England again reinstated Andrew Flintoff as captain in place of the injury plagued Michael Vaughan. Great bloke and inspirational cricketer Flintoff may be, but he is a dud captain.

Let's just say, for example, that a player happens to be...at third man. During a test match. You can't just walk away. So you stand there, for most of the day, being told that your sexual orientation leans towards sheep, and members of your own family, and that you are racist. And more.

He was due to be 12th man in a one-day match against Victoria at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in December 1999 when Damien Martyn injured his back and Simon Katich pulled out with what was eventually diagnosed as chronic fatigue syndrome.

"Someone said to me that he was going great guns. It was very special. Things like that I love to see. You could say that I had a bad year in terms of holding onto records.